Phantom of the Opera

Life as a Masquerade
with better costumes

OK, so I'm one of twelve New Yorkers who hasn't see the longest running show on Broadway - but now I've corrected that. Can't say I enjoyed it but at least the staging and costumes were nice. In this much loved hybrid musical and opera, Andrew Lloyd Weber adds music and song to Gaston Leroux's novel Le Fantôme de L’Opéra. The resulting dramaturgy is tolerable in places, boring in others and overall, very, very long and annoying. I enjoyed Masquerade, both the song and the scene. The fog and boat sequences were very eerie and effective. Unfortunately the fake opera was sad, the vocalizations horrid; makes me appreciate the opera singers at the MET. Guess I'm just not a fan for the puffed up, overblown theatrics that is the stereotypical Broadway musical. All that velvet makes me itchy.